


Shatterer of Worlds

by cosmogyrals



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-05
Updated: 2013-03-05
Packaged: 2017-12-04 09:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmogyrals/pseuds/cosmogyrals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the events of the S4 finale, Martha reflects on what she's seen and how it's influenced her decision to use the Osterhagen Key.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shatterer of Worlds

_"If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendour of the Mighty One -- I am become Death, the shatterer of Worlds." - Bhagavad Gita_

Martha turns the Osterhagen key over in her hand, looking at it. It's so small - and yet, she knows what it can do. She knows what she has to do. She's seen the world destroyed before, saw the human race enslaved and tortured and slowly killed over the course of a year. She remembers it all too well; teleporting down to London with the skies on fire and the streets running with blood as the childish laughs of the Toclafane rise above the anguished screams of the dying, picking her way through the deserted ruins of New York, listening to her Geiger counter click madly in Tokyo as the survivors of the nuclear bombs - the walking dead, their skin burnt, their bodies skeletal - beg for her to do anything she can, even if it means killing them. She remembers her family, what the Master did to them, and she knows that sometimes, the survivors are victims more than the dead are. Death is a mercy sometimes - and that's her duty now.

The shrieks of the Daleks echo in the night; even now, they're still rounding up humans, killing all those who dare offer opposition. Martha stumbles through the woods, wishing she had the perception filter to protect her and her precious cargo, trying to keep from slipping into flashbacks, because it's all so similar, this feeling of helplessness, that the only way she can save people is by killing them. It's not what the Doctor would want - he wants everybody to live whenever possible - but even he's helpless against the Daleks. Martha has to do what she can; she has to perform her duty one last time. Doctor Jones, one-time saviour of the human race, now destroyer of the human race. The Master, she thinks ironically, would be proud of her for accomplishing what he failed at doing. But to her, it's another part of protecting the Earth - keeping her family and the rest of the human race safe. A mercy killing on a genocidal scale, ripping the Earth apart and enveloping it in flames.


End file.
